Now the method of promoting virtue and filling the coffers was by the _misericordia_ or amercement. I cannot understand the difference between the two. But that matters little, they both meant a fine. By studying the long list of cases furnished by my authority, Madox,[14] I arrive at a theory, not a conclusion, that the amercement was a punishment for offences which could not be tried in a criminal court, yet were real offences. Thus, for false or unjust accusations or plaints, a man was amerced, or for unjust detainer, for offences in the forests, trespass, etc., for making a man fight two duels in one day, a thing manifestly unfair, for “ill keeping” a duel, _i.e._, not observing all the rules respecting duels, for claiming to be a free man when one was but a villein, for detaining sheep, for harbouring a man who was not in frank-pledge, for making again a dyke which the King had caused to be levelled, for using twice in ordeal an iron which had been heated only once, gross injustice to the second man, for burying a drowned man without the view by the King’s servant, for putting a man to the ordeal of water (was it then forbidden?), for trespass, and in the case of a rebellious bride, for not coming to be married on the day appointed. For these, and similar offences, the citizens suffered amercement and _misericordia_. More formidable than any of these, more dreaded than fine, amercement, or _misericordia_, were the Aid, the Relief, the Scutage, and the Tallage. There were three principal kinds of aid. (1) The aid _pur fille marier_, or the occasion of the marriage of the King’s daughter. Henry the First took for his daughter’s marriage three shillings on each hide. Henry the Second, for his part, imposed a tax under this name of one mark for every knight’s fee. As great lords might hold many knights’ fees, the tax was considerable. (2) The aid _pur faire chevaler_, on the occasion of conferring knighthood on the King’s son. This tax was the same in amount as the preceding. The third kind of aid was the raising of money if necessary for the King’s ransom. [Illustration: A TALLY FOR 6S. 8D. ISSUED BY EDWARD I.’S TREASURER TO THE SHERIFF OF LINCOLNSHIRE] Reliefs were simply arbitrary sums exacted by the King. The relief of the knight’s fee in the reign of Henry the Second was five pounds; that of a baron one hundred pounds. Scutage was, as its name denotes, an assessment of the knights’ fees.